Betrayed
by ToHandCraftedBeers
Summary: The beloved kitsune, Tails, has been murdered, and only one person has witnessed it. Who is responsible? Who is the wittness? Will they ever find closure after seeing a friend die? God only knows....


Betrayed

Chapter 1: Murder

Tails is 18 in this story. You can be creative for everyone else's ages. If I get any flames that say something like "u killed tailz i hate u!!1!" They will be disregarded, so don't bother. This will be more than one chapter, it's not one-shot. You can try and guess who the narrator and murderer are, but I don't think you'll be able to yet.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No one else saw it happen, just me. It sickens me to think of it. It makes my head spin and my stomach curl. I've wondered why I was the lucky person to witness this, but I have a feeling it doesn't matter. I saw it, and that's the bottom line.

I know I was the only one to see it because everyone else was... there. It makes my blood boil to remember it, why I left. It makes my blood freeze when I remember the screams, the begging, the death. I won't tell anyone. It hurts too much to think about it, so I highly doubt I can talk about it. I avoid the others, because when I look at them, I see him in their eyes. I see someone I will never see again.

I see Tails.

I broke down at his funeral. I didn't even want to go, but I felt I had to. I owed it to him, I owed it to all of them. I know Tails would've wanted me to go, even after seeing what happened. I think he would anyway. Well, I can't ask him now, can I?

When I say 'broke down' I don't mean cry. I wanted to cry, I wanted to cry so bad, but I couldn't. First, I thought it was because I was in public, but I couldn't cry at home either. I tried staring at a light bulb for a while, just to get my eyes watering, but I got nothing. It's like my body had been drained of it's ability to produce the salty water from my eyes in those few seconds that I had seen Tails die. As if with every stab from the knife, my eyes had dried more and more, until there was no sort of moisture left.

Like I was saying, break down doesn't always mean cry. I started to replay the scene of Tails's death over and over again in my mind, until it drove me insane. Nails were tearing at my skull, and my fur was hot. My eyes were ice cubes that couldn't melt, and fangs were tearing at my heart. I felt so many things at once.

The insanity kept me from hearing what my friends were saying about Tails. He always said that instead of one person speaking at his funeral, he wanted everyone to say something. So everyone did.

I didn't hear a word.

Except for when Tails's murderer stepped up, and started talking as if they missed Tails, as if they were crushed by his death. And though I'm sure I'm the only one who spotted it, I'm almost positive I saw a slight smile playing on the murderer's face as they delivered their speech. It's like they were proud, like they felt dignified at the fact that they had caused this. Almost as if killing Tails was an Olympic event, and this funeral was their metal.

I wanted to scream at the dirty killer, accuse them then and there of being a liar. I probably would've too, if I'd been able to talk. When I had seen that the murderer had stepped up to speak at all, my voice had been robbed of me. When it was my turn to say something, I had been able to regain myself for a few seconds, long enough to deliver a short speech.

"Tails was a good person. He was always there for his friends. Through the good or bad. How anyone could want him gone is beyond me."

I couldn't say anymore. They understood. They all understood. They knew how hard it was to stand up and speak. How hard not to lose control.

I think me and the murderer were the only ones not to cry. Everyone else had tears in their eyes, or tears rolling down their cheeks, even if it was only one or two. I pity Tails's poor girlfriend, who was completely bawling. After we left the grave yard, she knelt down in the middle of the street and started blubbering. She screamed that it wasn't fair, she claimed that she would've rather God take her, anyone but Tails. I felt for her, I wished I could reach out to her, but I couldn't. Nothing I could say would comfort her though, not after what I'd seen.

The dinner for after the funeral was at a nearby restaurant, but we took a car anyway. Most of us weren't in any condition to walk. Except for the murderer that is. We had to pick up the late Tails's girlfriend and carry her to the car. She fought us, screaming that she wanted to stay there, in the cold alley, so she could die of dehydration. Then she would be with Tails, and she would be happy. Everyone tried to talk sense into her, except for me and the murderer. We both knew there was no point. Again, I saw a smile creep across the murderer's face, like it made them happy to see the person Tails had cared for most in such pain.

The food at the dinner was good. It had a lot of Tails's favorite food, which I thought was pointless, considering the fact that he would never get to eat it. I cringed at seeing the knives neatly stacked. I wanted to take them, all of them, and hide them where no one could get them. I feared what the murderer would do if they spotted the knife. They hadn't been afraid to kill Tails. Why care about killing any of us?

I stole a look at the murderer, who was doing a pretty good job of pretending that they were mourning over Tails.

_How dare you, _I thought_, How dare you show up at this funeral and pretend to be devastated. Have you no shame?_

But I already knew the answer. The murderer did not regret what they did to Tails, and they'd do it again if they had the chance. Tails's girlfriend was sitting alone at a table, her head in her hands. She was whimpering softly. I wanted to talk to her, to put my hand on her shoulder, to tell her it would be okay. But whenever I looked at her, I saw Tails's face, the few seconds of fear that he showed before he was killed.

During those days after the murder, I learned that it was called heartache for a reason. Your chest actually felt like it had butterflies flying around in it. But they weren't the nice butterflies that you got from stage fright. These were evil butterflies, butterflies that wanted to tear you apart piece by piece.

I tried to get my mind off of Tails, but that was near impossible when everywhere I looked there was something that reminded me of him. Whether it was something orange on the floor, or the murderer them self, something was always there, breathing down my neck, whispering to me. It was as if the wind itself was saying, He's gone, and he's not coming back. You'll never see him again...

I would think about it before I fell asleep, and then his presence would haunt my dreams. Tails was everywhere, and at the same time, he was no where. He was everything, and yet he was nothing. I wanted to scream that I knew who murdered him, but I had no desire to share what I had seen. They would all ask questions, especially his girlfriend, they'd want to know everything that happened. I was afraid that if I told them, the murderer would find out, and I would be next. The fact alone that a murderer was walking among us was enough to make me faint, but for the murderer to be after me alone was more than I could bear.

_Why, _I thought desperately_, Why did you take Tails away from us, what did he ever do to you? How could you?_

That was a good question. The murderer had no reason, no alibi to be Tails's assassin. In fact, if I hadn't seen it happen, I might not even believe it. Tails was always so nice, to everyone, why would anyone want him dead?

The thing that bothered me most was that I saw it happen. I saw the innocent fox be murdered. I witnessed it. If his girlfriend knew that, she'd probably refuse to speak to me. Sometimes I wondered why I didn't stop it from happening, but I guess it was out of fear. Anyway, by the time I got over there, Tails would've been dead already, wouldn't he?

Dead, the word still didn't make sense to me. Tails had been in that state for over a week, and still it made no sense. How could Tails be there one day, happy and smiling and laughing, and then be gone the next day? How could he just stop existing? How could he just cease to live when we all needed him so much?

My head hurt from all the spinning going on, all the pain I felt since Tails's depature. Part of me wanted to just join Tails in death, and the other part wanted to seek revenge.

I wanted to make the murderer pay, I wanted them to suffer. Not only for what they did to Tails, but for what they did to all of us. Especially his girlfriend. I still remember the shrill scream that rang through the air when she found him lying dead on the floor the next morning. I had been too scared, too horrified to go over there or to notify the police; so I left him for someone else to find.

I was scared that simply by calling the police, the murderer would find me. Find me, and kill me. Since the day of the murder, I've found myself looking over my shoulder, checking to see if someone's there.

No one ever is.


End file.
